The present invention relates to a steerable medical device and, more particularly, to a medical device which includes radially deployable control wire guides.
Medical devices such as endoscopes and catheters are widely used in minimally invasive surgery for viewing or treating organs, cavities, passageways, and tissues. Generally, such devices include an elongated device body which is designed for delivering and positioning a distally-mounted instrument (e.g. scalpel, grasper or camera/camera lens) within a body cavity, vessel or tissue.
Since such devices are delivered though a delivery port which is positioned through a small incision made in the tissue wall (e.g. abdominal wall), and are utilized in an anatomically constrained space, it is desirable that the medical device or at least a portion thereof be steerable, or maneuverable inside the body using controls positioned outside the body (at the proximal end of the medical device). Such steering enables an operator to guide the device within the body and accurately position the distally-mounted instrument at an anatomical landmark.
In order to control deflection of a steerable portion of the device and thus steer the instrument mounted thereon, steerable medical devices typically employ one or more control wires which run the length of the device and terminate at the distal end of the steerable portion or at the distal tip.
The proximal end of each control wire is connected to the user operated handle; pulling of the wire bends the device body and deflects the steerable portion with relation the pulled wire.
Numerous examples of steerable devices are known in the art, see for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,498,692; 4,753,223; 6,126,649; 5,873,842; 7,481,793; 6,817,974; 7,682,307 and U.S. Pat. Application Publication No. 20090259141.
Although prior art devices can be effectively steered inside the body, the relatively small diameter of the elongated device body (which is dictated by the diameter of the delivery port), severely limits angle-of-deflection capabilities and increases the pull force required to deflect the steerable device portion.
As such, it would be highly advantageous to have a steerable medical device having a device body narrow enough for delivery through standard delivery ports and yet capable of providing wide angle steering of the deflectable portion within the body while minimizing the pull force required for such steering.